


show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy

by emothy



Series: Gaim PacRim [3]
Category: Kamen Rider Gaim
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 07:34:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3561491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emothy/pseuds/emothy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takatora runs into a trainee whilst thinking about his failed drift with his brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy

-

_Not what I thought._

Takatora flees down the corridor. To anyone else it might just look like a hurried walk somewhere terribly important, but Takatora can admit to himself that he's fleeing. 

_No,_ he corrects himself, _not **who** I thought._

He'd had to stop, break the neural handshake with Mitsuzane. It had been too much too handle, seeing things he'd never suspected, realising how in the dark he'd been about Mitsuzane's entire life. Mitsuzane either hadn't known just how much he was going to inadvertently confess in the drift, or just hadn't cared. Takatora hadn't stuck it out long enough to discover which. 

All he can think about is being burned again. Just like before, just like the last time, just like with Ryoma- 

"Oof!" 

Takatora isn't looking where he's going anymore, but crashing full force into another firmly packed and densely muscled body stops him pretty effectively. Kazuraba Kouta, trainee pilot. 

"Whoa, hey!" Kazuraba is light-hearted at first, but his eyes quickly narrow as he perceives the panic around Takatora. "Are you-"

"I'm fine," Takatora says quickly, before Kazuraba can even finish the question.

"No," Kazuraba replies, shaking his head. "I don't think you are. Come on, I know a quiet place you can be with your... **own** thoughts."

Is it **that** obvious, or is it just a lucky guess coming from a trainee who has probably been subjected to drift technology multiple times a day for who knows how many days past? Only seconds of drifting at first; thought is so instantaneous masses of information can be shared even in that tiny amount of time. Still, it's innate in every pilot to know that sometimes you need to hear only your own mind, think only your own thoughts.

He doesn't say anything. Takatora hadn't really thought Kazuraba had meant it when he'd offered silent companionship, not when in the mess hall he's so active and enthusiastic (like a puppy), but he just sits beside Takatora in the rafters of the Shatterdome and kicks his feet against the metal, making dull thuds but saying nothing. 

Takatora can't work out where he's gone wrong. Why those he loves best seem to have been led so far astray. He has always piloted with anyone he's been asked to. Everyone he's been asked to. All he has ever done is what is best for the world as a whole. He has the gift to be able to drift with anyone; something very, very few people can manage. He owes it to the world to use that gift to the fullest. 

He is the first one to speak. 

"On a very fundamental level, I just want to h-"

"-help people," Kazuraba finishes, and Takatora realises afterwards that Kazuraba didn't phrase it as a question. He didn't even say it knowingly, as someone who has spent a lot of time around Takatora and could predict was he was going to say would. 

Kazuraba says it as though he's speaking from his own heart. 

-


End file.
